Union Army Stops Returning Fugitive Slaves

The federal government prohibited Union officers from returning fugitive slaves to their owners on March 13, 1862, a directive that effectively nullified the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 for any enslaved person who reached Union lines. The order reflected a strategic shift: returning slaves helped the Confederacy by maintaining its labor force, while sheltering them weakened the Southern economy and provided the Union with labor, intelligence, and eventually soldiers. The directive was a crucial step in the war's moral evolution from a conflict to preserve the Union into one that destroyed slavery. 'Contraband' camps, as the military called settlements of escaped enslaved people, grew rapidly behind Union lines. By 1863, many of these former slaves were enlisting in the United States Colored Troops, eventually contributing nearly 180,000 soldiers to the Union cause. The order cleared the political path for Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued nine months later, which declared all enslaved people in rebel states 'forever free.'